


Because You're Mine

by PFL (msmoat)



Series: Two Christmas Stories [2]
Category: The Professionals
Genre: Christmas, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 12:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmoat/pseuds/PFL
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four years later, Bodie accepts Doyle's (unvoiced) invitation for Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Because You're Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2013 "Discovered in a Christmas Pud" challenge on the DiscoveredinaLJ community,

Bodie woke in Doyle’s bed. He lay still for a minute, absorbing the familiar sounds and the tranquility that Doyle somehow created in all his flats. Call it a sense of home, although that thought made Bodie uneasy. And yet, he had been the one who had wanted to crash here last night — this morning. 

_It’s Christmas — you invited me for Christmas._

_Eh?_

_Well, you were going to, you never did get around to it. You asked me what I was doing — on the Franks op._

_That was four years ago, mate. And you were busy._

_Well, I’m not now. C’mon, Ray. Could murder for a bed._

_If you snore, I’m shooting you._

_Fair enough. Put me out of me misery, anyway._

They had been on the run without a break for days, and they were both exhausted. Bloody bombing run-up to bloody Christmas. It never ended, did it? Four years of it — and before that with the SAS and Paras. Cowley had finally released them a little after three in the morning with a curt order not to show their faces to him again until they could stand straight. Bodie had driven them to Doyle’s, and he hadn’t wanted to go any further. 

Be honest. He hadn’t wanted to let Doyle out of his sight. 

Bodie opened his eyes, glanced at where Doyle must have slept, although he was gone now. He sat up and eased to the edge of the bed, groaning when he saw the low angle of the sun through the window. They’d slept most of Christmas Day — or he had, anyway. Last night, he had pulled on a t-shirt and jogging bottoms and collapsed onto the bed, along with Doyle. If he had dreamt, he didn’t remember it, just the bliss of unconsciousness, when silence was safe. He put his face in his hands, too many thoughts swirling through his brain. He didn’t want to think. He’d had too much time to think when Doyle was in hospital, when Doyle was in surgery, even when Bodie had been in that damn lift that had seemed to take forever to get down to the car — 

Bodie stood up. Doyle had changed flats after the shooting. The bedroom was different than the one he’d examined when Cowley had ordered him onto the case. _There's nothing you can do here_ , Cowley had said. Bodie had been grateful — action was a familiar panacea. But Cowley had taken him to Ray’s, where there had been little for him to do. He remembered trying not to think, and then trying to sense Doyle in the arrangement of his things, seeking…he didn’t know what. But the flat had been empty without Doyle, its tranquility destroyed.

Bodie crossed the room to Doyle’s wardrobe. A shower was what he needed, and then there was the day to be faced. He pulled a bag out of the wardrobe, stashed there for just such an occasion. He kept a bag at Doyle’s, another at HQ, and another in the car he stored — a bag in every port, good for quick getaways. He had become an expert at leaving, at knowing when it was time to go. It kept him safe. Change was inevitable, he’d rather keep ahead of it. He headed for the bathroom, but heard the shower as he neared it. He was about to turn round, when he heard the water shut off, so he leaned against the wall to wait. “You’d better have left me some hot water,” he called through the door. Doyle’s response was too mumbled to make out. Bodie’s stomach growled. When was the last time they’d eaten? Breakfast the day before…no, he’d grabbed a sandwich off the shelf at the petrol station. Doyle had turned up his nose at it, although that hadn’t stopped him from filching half of it when Bodie had been distracted by traffic. Bodie had complained, as expected, but he’d been glad to see Doyle eating. Doyle had passed fit, but he was still slightly underweight. Bodie closed his eyes as he leaned his head back against the wall. Fuck it, he had to stop thinking like that. Doyle wouldn’t thank him for the nagging. It was past time to move on. But that thought caused an unexpected twist in his stomach. He turned his head towards the door. “Hurry up, Ray.” Maybe they could go down the pub, get some food — damn, it was Christmas, wasn’t it?

The bathroom door opened. “All right, all right,” Doyle said. “Trust you to sleep like the dead then _immediately_ get up when it’s most inconvenient.”

Bodie pushed away from the wall. “What food have you got…?” His voice trailed off as Doyle, clad only in a towel, emerged from the bathroom. The scars from Mayli’s bullets and the surgery were vivid on Doyle’s skin. Bodie had seen them before, but not since the early, post op days. His mouth dried up; he felt as if he’d been sucker punched.

“Already checked, mate. I have bread. And cheese. And maybe a couple of cans of beans. Well, it’s your fault for insisting on staying when you know I haven’t — “ Doyle stopped speaking as Bodie’s silence clearly penetrated. And it seemed he read Bodie as easily as he did in the field, because his expression turned grim. “Dammit, Bodie.” He made as if to brush past, but Bodie grabbed his arm.

“Ray.”

At first it seemed as if Doyle would throw him off, but he quietened instead, although Bodie could feel the tension in him. “Thought it would be okay with you,” he said finally. “Reckon I ought to wait on the birds a while, eh?”

It was an attempt at humour, but Bodie couldn’t respond in kind. He was too busy being appalled at the emotions roiling within him, and his inability to hide them. He needed to do something. Doyle would break away in a moment and he didn’t want that. He tightened his grip.

“All right.” Doyle’s eyes met his. “Look your fill, then.” His voice was oddly, damningly gentle, as if it didn’t matter what Bodie had revealed, as if it were safe.

Fear galvanized him and he took refuge in action. He raised his other hand to cup Doyle’s cheek and the back of his head, and pulled Doyle towards him. He registered the shift to shock in Doyle’s eyes, felt something like triumph at it, but when their lips met there was no resistance. Bodie’s senses were overwhelmed in an instant: sight, smell, touch, and he heard Doyle murmur just before he tasted him at last. It was right, so bloody right, to be with Doyle like this. Joy pierced him like an arrow, pinned him. The kiss deepened and Bodie would willingly have stayed there forever, immersed in Doyle, but Doyle pushed him away.

Bodie took a step back, started to turn away, joy turned to panic, but Doyle grabbed him. He caught a glimpse of something fierce in Doyle’s eyes, and then he was in Doyle’s arms, being kissed by Doyle, and he didn’t want to break free. He understood this kind of need, the desire that drove them to each other, and to the bed, burying any doubts or hesitation in the urge for completion. Doyle was like a live wire in his hands, and he wanted nothing more than to bury his fear and confusion in him. And yet, he slowed them down, calmed Doyle with a touch, tracing the contours of Doyle’s scars with his fingers, and then his mouth.

“Bodie.” Doyle’s voice was nothing but a whisper. His breathing, ragged at first, eased under Bodie’s touch. One of Doyle’s hands came to rest on Bodie’s head. “You and me.”

 _Nearly lost you_ , Bodie thought, but couldn’t say. Doyle seemed to understand, though, or at least he brought Bodie’s mouth back to his own for a deep kiss, and then he pulled back a few inches. “Don’t think much of your finishing technique, Three-seven.”

“Oh, yeah?” Bodie grinned, feeling lit with life, like he did after a firefight. “You’ll pay for that.” And though Doyle tried to turn the tables more than once, and nearly succeeded when he wrapped both his hands round Bodie’s cock, Bodie made them both wait to come until Doyle was moaning and his own body’s demands were overwhelming. He brought them home then, taking Doyle’s release into his mouth and his own comfort against Doyle’s body. 

Silence engulfed them as passion faded, and despite the peace, Bodie’s heart seemed to start pounding again. It felt as if he could hear it in the silence between them. He was afraid of Doyle’s reaction, of Doyle himself, and of what he might — could — demand of Bodie. The silence was oppressive, as it always had been, right from the start in his own home with a drunken father and a fearful mother. Home was never a refuge he sought, and he fled from silence and the promise of a peace that never was. And yet, sometimes, in the waiting between action in a firefight, with Doyle by his side, he felt content to be still and quiet. It almost felt…safe. But such moments were fleeting. They had to face the day — 

“It’s Christmas,” Doyle said in a hushed voice, as if it meant something. And maybe it did, because Bodie found himself allowing Doyle to draw him back down until he lay against Doyle, his arm across Doyle’s chest, his fingers just brushing the upper scar. He buried his face against Doyle’s shoulder. The silence settled again, but it seemed lighter. He could feel Doyle breathing, strong and steady, as sure as his aim with a gun. Doyle’s arm was heavy on Bodie’s back, not pressing him down, but sheltering him. His partner who watched his back.

Minutes went by, and in the quiet tranquility of Doyle’s flat, he allowed himself to name the yearnings he’d buried for so long: acceptance, peace, home. Maybe he didn’t need to banish silence with action. Maybe. He could…

“Ray?”

“I told you: beans and cheese and toast, that’s it.”

“What are you doing Boxing Day?”

“You.” Doyle’s voice turned reflective: “Us.”

It was that still moment between action, when he was safe with Doyle. He could trust in that, couldn’t he? They might just make it last. “There’s food at my place.”

“And all is balanced in the world,” Doyle murmured, just before he kissed him.

END  
December 2013


End file.
